This book sounds like a scream! Can’t wait to get a copy of my own. I was struck by something you said about the violence in this book not being something you’d usually see in a North American title. I wonder if that’s a function of the “Disneyfication” of stories here. The need to make them all end happily ever after. For instance, Disney’s Little Mermaid ends far differently than the original tale in which Ariel turns into sea foam.

well… in addition to the wolf trying to get in and eat all the children and the abuse that the little goats heap on the dim-witted wolf, the book ends with the very prim and mild mannered beer drinking mom (I love that, I need to do a SwimmingInLiterarySoup.com episode singing the praises of beer-drinking moms in picture books!) slapping each of her kids.

Not your average 2000-and-something children’s book, but in the context of the millions of other books that we read our children, and in the context of the way we treat our children and the way we are raising them to treat others, it’s a completely hilarious and ridiculously fun read. Reminds me of the anvil-crushing, dynamite exploding coyote and roadrunner days of my pre-CareBare youth!!